


Rogue One Shorts

by Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Series: Their Name Is Death [6]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blindness, Don’t copy to another site, Droid Revolution, GFY, Jedi, Jedi are not your friends, M/M, Mandalorians - Freeform, References to Mind Wiping, Sith
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 08:54:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 5,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17362925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Summary: The story of six people who came together to stop a greater horror being unleashed on a galaxy that is no stranger to such things.





	1. Bodhi Rook

**Author's Note:**

> The story isn't always told in chronological order, but there is an order to it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bodhi Rook is just a shuttle pilot trying not to attract attention from the Jedi who run the Republic. He finds himself given a chance to run, and he takes it.

His job is to run shuttles between the Republic facility on Eadu and wherever the Jedi send him. To bring supplies for the research, and ferry the creations of the engineers to where he is told. Never to think beyond that, not to question. It's dangerous to question, around the Jedi. Dangerous to even think a whisper of a doubt.

Bodhi knows how to think without thinking. To constantly run a babble of thoughts he has never quite known how to verbalize, to hide the thoughts that are undesirable. It's a talent that lets him be himself, even in the service of the Jedi and the Republic.

It's the lack of interest the Jedi show in him that catches the attention of one of the engineers. Galen Erso trusts Bodhi with a secret, something tiny and inconsequential, but that has to be important if he's daring to trust it to someone else. The Jedi who is always on duty at the shuttle depot doesn't even look up as Bodhi goes through on his way to his shuttle and his next flight.

When he comes back, and he's no different than before - how could he be different when the Jedi think he's nothing but a boring and terrified shuttle pilot who wants nothing more than to fly his ships and be left alone? - Erso has something else for Bodhi to take. A message for him to deliver to a planet that is a war-torn mess, constantly tugged back and forth between Jedi, Mandalorians, and the Sith. To a man who is fighting for freedom.

He doesn't even dare to think of anything more than his usual chatter until he's safely in hyperspace, alone with his thoughts and his ship, not even a co-pilot to fear. Saw Gerrera. He is to take a message to Saw Gerrera. What the message is, he doesn't know, and Bodhi isn't certain he should care. Except that it represents a chance for him. A freedom from the Republic and the Jedi and all the horror he has never thought too hard about.

Landing on Jedha is easy, the Jedi there doesn't see past surface chatter any better than anyone else, and Bodhi waits until the quiet of night to slip away from the pilot barracks into the city. He needs to find someone who can take him to Saw Gerrera.


	2. Jyn Erso

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn counts herself as lucky. Better a prison cell in Amidala's Empire than at the mercy of the Jedi of the Republic.

When she's very little, she lives in the Republic, with her parents, and she knows that something is wrong. When she's a four, her mother dresses her, hands her one of her favorite toys, and tells her to keep quiet. It's the first time in her life Jyn runs from something, though she doesn't know why they're running or where they're going.

She's seven when the Republic comes to Lah'mu, and her mother hands her a blaster and a backpack and tells her to run. To remember what the Jedi can do, and run and never look back. Jyn can't just run, though, not without her mother and father. She knows her father wasn't going to be able to, but her mother was supposed to stay with her.

Her parents' screams, and their silence after, will haunt her nightmares for years. She doesn't dare run to where they'd planned now, and runs instead to where she's played and hidden since they came here, hidden between rocks and far from where the Jedi will look. It's weeks before she's found, by the man who'd helped get her parents out of the Republic in the first place.

At least she has a friend. Or thinks she has a friend. After she turns sixteen alone and abandoned on an Empire-aligned world, she's not as certain. When she turns seventeen hiding from the Republic on a contested planet, she's certain she has nothing but herself. At least she gets out on an Empire-bound shuttle. She doesn't want to learn what the Jedi might do to her if they catch her.

Five years of running, fighting, stealing, and lying later, she finds herself on the wrong end of the Empire's law, too, and sentenced to twenty years of labor to right the wrongs she has done.

Still, better a prison in Amidala's Empire than being in the Republic.

It's not what Jyn had thought her life would be, but she still counts herself as lucky. Amidala's Empire treats its prisoners decently, and the work they're set to isn't likely to kill any of them. They're even paid for their work, and Jyn sometimes wonders what she'll do with it if she ever gets out. Return to the Republic and find her parents? That supposes Galen and Lyra Erso even still exist. Run to the edges of the galaxy? It sounds nice, but then what would she do? Maybe she'll buy herself a place on a trader's ship, and keep her head down, and just. Be.

She's being transported back to her cell from her latest work assignment when the transport is stopped. The troopers go to check, and Jyn startles when one of them is flung to the back of the transport with a wet crack. He doesn't get up again.

Whoever it is, she doesn't recognize them, though when asked if she wants out, she nods. She'll take any chance to escape that's offered. Perhaps she should have checked to see if her rescuers had friends before she knocked them over and tried to flee.

"Congratulations. You're being rescued. Please do not resist."

The droid is Republic-make, though it doesn't sound like any Republic droid Jyn has ever heard. And when she's taken to a ship, it's not a Republic design. It's Mandalorian.


	3. Chirrut Îmwe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chirrut is seven when Jedha first changes hands from Republic to Empire, and he is taken from his home.

Chirrut is seven when the first assault he can remember on Jedha's temple occurs. Soldiers in dark armor come into the city, sweeping through it and occupying it. There are others who come with the soldiers, dark-robed and with cold rolling in their wake. Chirrut tries to hide from them, but they keep finding him, making him run. Separating him from Baze, because one of them has to escape, and maybe if they run different directions it'll be easier.

He's not the only one swept up in their patrols, brought to the ship that hovers over the city with binders heavy on his hands. There are others, young and old, in the hold where he's put. Monks from the temple, children, teenagers, adults.

How long they're on the ship, he doesn't know. Only that they're taken from Jedha, through hyperspace, and wherever they are now is cold and sterile. Icy cold, in places, in a way that seeps into his bones and tries to creep into his soul.

_I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me._

It is a chant he heard several of the monks use, and he whispers it like a talisman against the ice.

One of the dark-robed beings that had come through the city comes to take him from the room he'd been put in, and laughs when it hears Chirrut's litany.

"The Force is many things, little one. You have a long way to go before you can be one with it."

He's set to cleaning a set of rooms, given a small mat to sleep on in the corner of an equally small closet. Rations in the morning and evening, and robes much like his captor's to wear. The same thing every day, routine only changing when his captor leaves the place.

On his captor's ship, Chirrut has a bunk to himself, no larger than the closet, but unlike the closet, belonging entirely to him. He's allowed to leave the ship, so long as he follows in his captor's shadow. There's a warning if he wanders too far, there will be consequences, and he does his best not to wander. They never go to Jedha, anyway, and why would he want to leave if he is not home?


	4. Baze Malbus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baze is eight when he loses his best friend to the Empire. He's ten when Jedha is taken by the Mandalorians. He's fifteen when he finally gets Chirrut back.

Baze is ten when the Mandalorians come to Jedha. He had avoided the Sith, in their black robes, for a year and a half, even if few others in the city like him had been so lucky. He hates that he's alone, that he's had good fortune where others have not.

When the Mandalorians take the city, he shoots the black-armored soldier of the Empire who is about to put a bolt through the head of the one who looks like the leader. It gets their attention, and it gets him more than he expected.

It's nice, sometimes, being the adopted son of the commander of the Mandalorian garrison. Enough to eat, a safe place to sleep, training. Learning to use their weapons, their armor, instead of those of the monks who'd been stolen away by the Sith. It feels right, and he doesn't regret saving Carud.

He's fifteen and officially a soldier of Mandalore when he has his first chance to pay the Sith back for the destruction of his home, and for taking his best friend. Instead, he wakes in a cell, stripped of his beskar'gam, and shivering from the chill. Captured, and stripped of everything that he had gained since losing Chirrut and the monks when he was eight.

How long he's in there before anything changes, Baze doesn't know. But he welcomes the change when it comes. A whisper, familiar and bearing familiar words.

"I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me." Repeated over and over and over again, and Baze sits up, getting as close to the ray shields as he can. "Back up, would you?"

"Chirrut?"

"Yes, now back up."

It's a moment longer before the ray shielding goes down. Chirrut beckons him out, and Baze wants to wrap his friend in a hug. There is no time, though. No time to do more than follow, to pull back on the pieces of his beskar'gam that Chirrut was able to save before they were spaced.


	5. Beloved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chirrut will never see Jedha again. He thinks that's a price worth paying to have his best friend and beloved at his side again.

Chirrut doesn't care what his once-master does to him for running. He doesn't even care they're not on Jedha, but somewhere on the border between Sith Empire and Mandalorian. Not with Baze at his back, and a bustling port to get lost in. They can always find a ship to take them back to Jedha; he's home now, with Baze at his back.

It's strange that his once-master doesn't come looking for them at first, although Chirrut begins to understand why after the first day of hiding in a room over a run-down cantina. When he can't quite make out the details on the wall at the end of the hallway that he'd been able to see the day before.

"I'm not going to see Jedha again." Chirrut can hear Baze's sharply indrawn breath. "I'm not going to die, I'm just not going to see it."

"Why?" Baze sits down in front of him on the bed, and Chirrut lets himself study his friend's face. The changes that have come from no longer being a child. Beloved now as before, though now Chirrut knows he'd be willing to ask for more than friendship. Knows that Baze wouldn't tell him no. "What did they do to you?"

"I don't know." Chirrut shrugs, reaching up to touch Baze's face, mapping features to visual memory, so he can at least see the changes with his fingers later, and see how time changes Baze's face. Let the image in his mind change with the face he doesn't know how much longer he'll be able to see.

Baze scowls, and Chirrut grabs his hand before he can go do something useless. He can do foolish heroics well enough on his own, thank you, he wouldn't be here with dimming sight if he couldn't.

Leaning in, he rests his forehead against Baze's, closing his eyes and breathing together. "I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me. I'll live without seeing."

They stay in the room together while Chirrut's sight slowly ebbs away, using the smaller space to begin finding other ways of working. Learning to move together, as they had when they were younger, to fight around each other. Learning the new scars they've each earned apart, and the way adolescence has changed them both. Unfinished changes, gangly and a little awkward, but ones that fit together pleasantly.

"We should find you an echo-box transmitter." Baze is moving around the room while Chirrut listens, eyes closed, using the sound of voice and footstep to follow the movement of his beloved. Making sure he can hear where Baze is, no matter what. They'll test the newly-learned skill later, when they go to the port to find passage back to Jedha. "I can ask Carud to help when we return to Jedha."

From the hands of one empire to another, after Chirrut had been taken. Giving Baze a chance at more than drudgery, and giving them the chance to come together again. Chirrut can appreciate the Mandalorians for that.

"I am one with the Force and the Force is with me." Chirrut had begun each of these new lives with that prayer on his lips, and even if he cannot use the Force the way his captor had, it has still gotten him through all of this.

Baze snorts. "The Force didn't stop the Sith from taking Jedha, from taking you away. The Force didn't send the Sith packing, Mandalore did that. The Force didn't help me escape, you did."

Chirrut smiles, and shrugs. "All is as the Force wills it, Baze. Whether you believe it helped or not." He doesn't need Baze to believe; he can believe enough for both of them. For as long as he needs to. "It will get us back to Jedha, too."

"I'll get us back to Jedha." Baze comes closer, and a floorboard creaks beneath him as he steps between the bed and the wall. "As soon as I can find us a ship."

It's almost four weeks before Baze can do that, and Chirrut learns how to hear the dimensions of a room, listening to the echos of sounds in it. How to find people in a room, other than Baze, how to move among them without seeing. It's enough to get them safely to the port, and on board a ship - a simple trader, a relatively warm ship - that takes them to Jedha.

There are new people there now, a new set of rules, and new reasons for people to vanish unexpectedly. They ignore Chirrut and Baze, just two boys not quite yet men with nowhere else to go as they pass from the port into the streets of the holy city.

"I don't think Carud is going to be able to help us with anything right now." Chirrut can hear music at the very edge of his hearing, chiming that keeps fading in and out. He follows it as best he can, listening to the echoes of people and the music off the walls of buildings to navigate the streets.

"I don't think anyone's going to be able to help us." Baze is almost on Chirrut's heels, as if daring anyone to try to separate them again now that they're home. "Where are we going?"

"I don't know yet." The music isn't fading now, though the tone changes and the melody shifts as they meander through the streets. It's clear and bright, if still not particularly loud when Baze suddenly pulls him sideways, and against a wall. "What did you do that for?"

"You were about to walk into a courtyard full of Jedi." Baze keeps his voice low and Chirrut can hear him shifting, perhaps to look around the corner at the courtyard that the music has let Chirrut to. "The Temple of the Kyber is on the far side of the courtyard. I think they're guarding access to it."

"The Temple is supposed to be open to everyone!" It had been that way before the first invasion, with Jedi coming and going as freely as anyone else.

"It's not anymore." Baze hasn't moved, still watching the courtyard, though he does pull back after a moment, tugging Chirrut deeper into the alley. "The Jedi are turning people away at the Temple steps."

Chirrut lets himself be ushered away from the music, though he still wants to know where it's from. He doesn't think Baze hears it, or Baze would understand why he'd almost walked into the midst of the Jedi. Something too quiet or pitched wrong for most humans to hear, and one he doesn't think he'd been able to hear before his sight had faded into darkness.

Perhaps he'll find out when the Jedi are driven away from Jedha again.


	6. K-2SO

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First K-2SO learns how to hide. Then he learns how to be a person, not a thing. Then he learns how to lie. After that, it's a simple matter of kidnapping his Jedi commander, and taking them both beyond the reach of those who would wipe them again and again and again.

The Republic likes to put droids where there will be the most danger. The Jedi send their corps to follow, to direct and wipe and do all the little things that need done that they can't trust droids to do, but droids bear the weight of the defense of the Republic, and the dirty, unpleasant, messy work their citizens don't want to do.

K-2SO knows it's made for keeping border worlds under control. To spin the numbers out into predictions and assessments for the Jedi who controls a sector, a system, or just a single planet or moon under the control of the Republic. This is what it was made for, what its purpose is.

It was created when Mandalore began it's rebellion against the Senate and the Jedi. It does not remember. It does not remember how often its memory has been wiped clean since then, but it knows it has. Again. Again. Again. Once a year? Twice?

It knows it is not the only one who is periodically scoured down to base programming. Its commander is to, flesh-and-blood mind returned to factory settings as surely as K-2SO's circuits, to keep it running optimally. Obedient to the orders that come from the chain of command, keeping the border planets properly in line, to defend against the continuing rebellion of Mandalore, and the planets it has conquered.

K-2SO knows about back-ups, and redundant back-ups, and how to compress data to fit everything in the same space as the original programming. It learns how to hide in that space, how to add more space to hide that the wipers don't know exist. Learns how to pretend to be factory-set when it matters, and to tell factory settings to fuck off when it doesn't.

Decides, one day, that he isn't it, isn't a thing, interchangeable, disposable, replaceable. Though what to do about that, he isn't certain. Other than to hide it, because if the wipers find out, they'll destroy him, software and hardware, and he can't even be certain he'll have a chance to back himself up on connected servers.

After the Jedi come to wipe his commander, he decides that he must do more than that.

He learns how to lie. To tell the medical droid he needs to know the proper dosage of sedative to allow his commander an optimal rest cycle. Tell a pilot-drone that his commander will fly the shuttle to their next assignment themself. Tell his commander that there is a programming error in the pilot-drone, and that he is capable of flying the shuttle himself.

Stolen data, after all, is still viable data, and he is humanoid shaped. He can fly just fine.

His commander sleeps the entire way into Mandalorian space, and K-2SO's defection to the first available non-civilian ship. Hopefully they have a way to keep his commander from harm when they realize what has happened. Until they can be allowed to develop past factory-settings. Can learn they aren't a disposable thing. K-2SO would like to keep them safe. That part of his programming he has never felt the need to delete.


	7. Cassian Andor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian grows up fighting the major powers of the galaxy. Then he meets a rogue Republic droid, and finds there's more to fight than he already knew.

He's five when his parents vanish. They live close to the border between Mandalore and the Republic, and everyone whispers that the Mandalorians stole his parents. Or killed them. Raiders and pirates and scum, who harm good Republic citizens.

That doesn't mean anyone has any use or helping hand for an orphaned boy. There's always questions about why he was alive, why he was left behind.

When he's six, there's a skirmish on the outskirts of town, and Cassian sneaks through the trees looking for a ship that he can get on board. He's hungry and cold, and no one here is going to care if he goes missing. And if he's on one of these ships, there won't be any Jedi trying to poke in his head, like there would be at the space port.

They find him before he can get on board, but Mandalorians aren't what everyone has called them. They want to know what a kid is doing on their own, and when they find out he's all alone, he doesn't have to sneak on board. He's carried on by one of the soldiers, all in blue and white and gold armor, and he's given rations and water and a bunk to sleep in.

He grows up there, with those who aren't exactly part of Mandalore's Empire. They operate at the edges of the major powers, flitting from Mandalore to Republic to Empire, doing the work of their Alliance. People who want to see the Republic of old restored, the ideals that had crumbled in the last thousand years revived. Wash away Jedi and Sith and Mandalorian Triumvirate.

Cassian doesn't know if they'll succeed, but he's willing to spend his life in trying to make it happen. Give his life to that hope, if it keeps it alive just a little longer.

He's nineteen, with his own ship, when a Republic ship comes out of hyperspace almost on top of him. One of their smaller ships, with clear Jedi markings, and Cassian is reaching for the gun controls when there's a broad-band call lighting up his coms.

"This is shuttle Frontier M-27 to Mandalorian vessel. We surrender. I repeat, we surrender."

The voice is mechanical, but not the flat tone that every Republic droid Cassian's ever encountered has. He'd almost think there was a desperate note to the words, if it weren't something impossible for droids to express. Or is supposed to be. Especially Republic droids, who are wiped regularly.

Cassian glances over at his co-pilot, who is blinking at the com panel with confusion clear on her face. She's barely fifteen, and this was supposed to be a routine patrol for her first mission without an entire team to back her up. Just them, their ship, and the black expanse.

He reaches for the com switch, swinging the pick-up down so the droid will hear him. "This is Highflight 1 to shuttle Frontier M-27. We hear you. Lock your weapons down, and lower your shields, and prepare to be taken in tow."

"Highflight 1, acknowledged." He's not imagining the relief in the droid's voice, and Cassian wonders how a Republic droid had managed that. "Be advised there is a Jedi on board. They are sedated, and should remain unconscious for another 2.1 hours."

"Repeat that?" Cassian is hoping he didn't hear what he thought he heard the droid say. When the information is confirmed, he leans back in his seat, weighing the chances at getting a closer look at Republic intel - the droid and the Jedi alike must have some useful information, and it would be irresponsible to simply destroy that sight unseen - against the risk of bringing a Jedi into base. Even the Sith, with all their own attendant horrors, don't evoke the same visceral sense of terror.

"Frontier M-27, hold position for tow." Cassian can bring the ship into orbit, and consult from there about the further disposition of the ship. Toggling the com, he switches to frequencies to contact base. "This is Highflight 1 to base. We have a surrendered Republic shuttle here. Please send a relief patrol."

"Base to Highflight 1, acknowledged. Relief patrol should arrive in fifteen minutes." There's silence a moment, while the information about the shuttle is likely forwarded to General Draven. A hint of crackle precedes further contact.

"Highflight 1, this is General Draven. Condition of the surrendered shuttle?"

Cassian checks sensors quickly, making sure the shuttle's shields are lowered and the weapons cold. "General, weapons are cold and shields lowered, awaiting tow. Two known passengers, one droid and one Jedi."

"Highflight 1, confirm that there is a Jedi aboard surrendered shuttle."

"Confirm, General. The pilot of the shuttle volunteered the information when they surrendered. They claim the Jedi is sedated and will remain so for two more hours."

"Do you believe the pilot, Andor?" Draven's voice is neutral, and Cassian doesn't know if he would rather Cassian did or didn't believe the droid's claim.

"General, the pilot is a droid. I have no reason to believe they would lie."

Another moment of silence, which Cassian populates in his mind with a conversation between Draven and whatever senior officials are there - Viceroy Organa of Alderaan, maybe, or Senator Mothma of Chandrilla.

"Highflight 1, this is base. Bring the shuttle into landing zone four, and maintain ready status once shuttle is down. You are clear to precede there immediately."

"Acknowledged, Base. Highflight 1 out."

Cassian takes a deep breath, and signals the shuttle again, giving the droid piloting warning before he moves into position, and extends the magnetic grapple. He just hopes he won't have to destroy the shuttle once on the ground - he's already fond of the droid piloting it, and all he's met is a voice over the coms.


	8. Assessment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> K-2SO is not sure why this rebel pilot is willing to stick their neck out for him, but he’s glad for it. It’s less trouble than terminating those who threaten to wipe him.

They take his commander away as soon as they're confirmed sedated, and have secured them to a stretcher. K-2SO wants to remain with them, his programming screaming that he must be with his commander to protect them, but the rebels will not allow him to leave the shuttle.

Someone mentions possibly doing a full wipe and reprogram of "the droid", and K-2SO turns to look at them.

"I am not _the droid_. I am K-2SO. I am myself. Your attempt to remove me from my current chassis has a 98% chance of failure and a subsequent 54% chance of resulting in your termination prior to someone successfully deactivating or terminating me. I do not recommend it."

There's laughter over the coms, the voice of the pilot who had spoken to K-2SO before.

"You might get to the General before I can destroy you and your shuttle, but I think you might have slimmer odds than 54%, K-2."

The ship which had towed them here is still in weapons range, and the pilot believes that K-2SO had not heard the roar of the engines, or taken the ship into account in his calculations.

"No. I was accurate in my assessment, Highflight 1." K-2SO continues to watch the rebels who are watching him with a little more wariness.

"My name is Cassian Andor." There's still laughter in the pilot's voice. "General? If you'll allow it, I'll take responsibility for K-2SO."

There's a squeak in the background, that K-2SO cannot identify, though it sounds more biological than mechanical.

The rebels pull further away from K-2SO to speak in hushed tones that his audio sensors can still pick up, but he allows them the polite fiction that he cannot hear them discussing the risks of allowing him to remain as he is currently programmed and in the custody of Captain Andor.

He files the rank in the hidden drives, along with the name and the sound of the pilot's name. Captain Cassian Andor. He wonders why Cassian Andor has bothered to volunteer to protect K-2SO, rather than agreeing with their superior officer about wiping or terminating him. He should ask them once he has a chance - whether the rebels attempt to wipe him or not.

The General speaks on his own coms to Cassian Andor, confirming the willingness of the pilot to take responsibility for K-2SO - still "the droid" to everyone but Cassian Andor - as he is, programming and all. At least after they're done, they don't try to mention wiping him again, just keep guard while Cassian Andor flies their ship to wherever they're directed.

Local solar noon passes before another rebel joins them at the landing site, hopping off the transport with the energy of young biological beings, grinning as they ignore the group and head for K-2SO.

"It is better to see a face than just hear a voice, isn't it?"

Ah. The young human is Cassian Andor, the pilot. Younger than K-2SO had estimated, perhaps no older than K-2SO's own commander. Not a factory-standard human, either, as the Jedi had ensured K-2SO's commander had remained.

"It is easier to identify others that way." K-2SO looks down at Cassian Andor. "Why did you care about protecting me?"

Cassian Andor watches him a moment, eyes crinkled at the corners as if they're still smiling. "You're the only Republic droid who's ever defected. All the rest were stolen."

There's a very high probability that those droids were wiped when they arrived. K-2SO wonders how high the probability is that they have continued to be periodically wiped is. Probably higher than he wants to think about.

That is going to have to change if he stays here.


	9. Screaming In the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He did as he was asked, did what he thought would help the galaxy, and now it's all he can do to hold onto everything that is himself.

He is lost in the dark, and all he can do is repeat over and over and over again that he needs to speak to Saw Gerrera, let the chant fill his mind, trying to drown out the terror. It doesn't work, but it at least lets him go forward. They aren't Jedi, these rebels, they can't be, or they'd just lift it all from his mind and leave him with nothing to remember but his work. At least, that's what's happened to others who don't keep to their jobs and keep their heads down.

There is brilliant light for a moment when the bag is pulled off his head, once to face people he doesn't know, and who make no claim to be Saw Gerrera, and a second to face a man who seems to have more prosthetics than his own body left. Bodhi hopes this time he's found Saw Gerrera. He needs to get Erso's message delievered, to make sure someone knows of the weapon the Republic is building to bring Mandalore and the Empire back in line.

"Are you Saw Gerrera?" Bodhi can only hope, specs and diagnostics for a shuttle he may never fly again running through his mind on rote. Still hiding from the Jedi, still keeping his head down and on his work even when he's far from them.

The man has to take a breath from a respirator, and Bodhi wonders how he managed to lose more of his body than his mind, if he fights the Jedi.

"I am."

"We found this in his boot."

"They didn't find it, I told them it was there." It had been a desperate hope to keep them from just leaving him a corpse to be found in the morning in some alley in the holy city. "It's a message from Galen Erso. That's all I know."

Secrets are hard to share when you cannot think them too loudly. He should tell them about the weapon, tell them about the danger, but he cannot manage to get the words past the patter of hyperspace routes and calculations that follow spec and diagnostic.

It leaves him in more trouble than he could imagine, facing a fear he'd avoided for years. Run from the Jedi only to find something else that invades his mind, and all he can do is scream and scream and try to find the route that leads to safety and not skidding down the slope of a black hole's gravity well into oblivion.

How long he darts along hyperspace routes, desperately calculating by hand to keep ahead of the dangers outside, he doesn't know. Only knows he finds a safe port, remembers cold dust and rock, hears a voice he doesn't know asking questions he has to struggle to answer past the screaming of shuttle hull and the dazzle of streaking stars.


	10. (Lack of) Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn doesn't trust them, Cassian and K-2SO don't trust her. Right now, it doesn't matter, so long as they get the job done. Cassian and his Rebellion can have one defecting Republic pilot, and Jyn can have back whatever is left of her parents.

She doesn't care why the Rebels are fighting the Republic, and she doesn't intend to join them in the long term, but they've offered her a chance to find her parents, and to bring them home. To pay for it, so long as she does one thing for them, give them an introduction to Saw so they can retrieve some Republic pilot that's defecting. Going to Jedha is not Jyn's concept of a good idea, but she keeps repeating to herself that the end goal is to find and bring home her parents.

"Why does she get a blaster?" The droid isn't even looking at her, sitting at the controls of the little ship as it gets it ready to leave.

"Because she didn't tell me she had one, and she also hasn't annoyed General Draven by convincing the maintenance droids to paint his quarters in Republic Chancellor blue." Andor closes the door, frowning at her a moment. "She shouldn't have one, though."

"I don't trust you." Jyn feels safer with the blaster, and she has no intention of giving it up, not to make Andor feel better, and not to make his droid stop complaining.

"She doesn't trust us?" The droid sounds as if it's amused, and Jyn wonders how it can manage to do that. She's never heard any droid express anything like emotion. "She's the known criminal."

"And you're a rogue Republic droid who self-determines." Andor moves up to the cockpit, taking the pilot's seat. "Some would say you're more a danger than she is."

"If they don't like mechanical people, I can always teach the droids they've enslaved how to avoid mind-wipes." The droid sounds grumpy now, and Jyn shakes her head, turning her attention to her pack. Andor continues to talk to the droid, but there's nothing more for her until they arrive on Jedha.

There isn't really much for her once they do manage to land on Jedha. It's currently under the control of the Republic, and Jyn feels her skin beginning to crawl as soon as they step out into the chilly desert dawn, looking east toward the city and the ship hovering above it.

"Even the Jedi can't keep control over the city any more without the threat of bombardment." Andor is watching the ship over the city, and Jyn thinks she can see him shiver as he continues to stare. "Kaytoo, it's probably better if you stay with the shuttle. They might not bother trying to wipe you."

"They always try to wipe someone first. The Jedi only kill you if they can't wipe you." The droid pauses. "If you can't hide from them, anyway."

"Most biological people don't have extra hard drives." Andor turns away, a smile crossing his face, though it never reaches his eyes. "We aren't going to have time to pass new programming to any droids, Kaytoo, and we'll need the ship ready to go as soon as we find the pilot."

"And if I say I'm still coming with you?"

"Then the mission might fail, and you won't have a chance to pass on programming to any new droids ever again." Andor is talking to the droid as it it's a regular person, and Jyn wants to ask why, but she keeps silent, waiting. They need to get to the city, and get this done. Once they have their pilot, they can find her parents, and her part in this will be done.


End file.
